


Lucid

by orphan_account



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-10
Updated: 2010-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin's relationships, through thick and thin</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucid

  


**Maggie**

  
He was ten years old, with his hair already coiling into tight little curls on top of his head, so much so that Mrs. Clay down the street who had just turned 73 and slowly declining into senility called him Shirley Temple. He hated the nickname, but couldn't bring himself to dislike Mrs. Clay whom he could remember preparing lemonade for him on hot summer days, before she became ill. Her daughter Tess came along to take care of her, because the Clays didn't believe that nursing homes could take adequate care of their mother, and when Tess came along, she brought along her daughter, a girl of ten called Maggie.

Maggie was a pain, pure and simple. Justin felt immediately repulsed by her, with her sticky, always licked fingers and gap-toothed grin, and her irritating Boston accent, made more so because she insisted on calling him by his last name. "Hey Timbelake!" would ring across the street, and he felt immediately horrified being singled out like that because he would be with his friends playing basketball, and there was this loud, obnoxious girl calling his last name with a letter missing. It was embarrassing.

His mother didn't raise rude children though, so Justin always came, even though the lemonade was never as good as Mrs. Clay's. That formula disappeared along with the rest of the cool things Mrs. Clay used to be able to do. The latest was the weirdest blow yet. Mrs. Clay began to believe that she was Canadian, born and raised.

One day, Justin came over on his own, knowing that Maggie would call him anyway in a few minutes. He spotted her under the huge tree the Clays had in their front yard. He went over and saw that Maggie had her head down on her knees, with her back against the tree trunk.

"Hey Maggie," he ventured cautiously.

"Hey Timbelake."

"Is it your grams again?"

"Yeah."

"What's she doing?"

"Weird stuff. She's so weird!" She raised her head and stared directly at something only she could see.

He sat down beside her, not really knowing what to do. Just then he heard it. Mrs. Clay's old garbled singing voice. "_Oh, Canada. Our home and native land_-"

Maggie turned around swiftly, with tear tracks still visible down her face, eyes wide open.

"_True patriot love_-"

She lunged forward and kissed Justin on the mouth.

"_With all thy sons' command!_"

With her mouth closed.

"_With gloried hearts, we see thee rise_-"

Justin stared into her cool gray eyes in shock.

"_The True North strong and free_-"

He felt her lips, dry and soft.

"_From far and wide, O Canada_-"

Closed his eyes for both their sakes.

"_We stand on guard for thee!_"

He pushed her away as gently as he could, and ran back to his house. Out of breath, out of shock, out of so many things.

**Chris**

  
Germany was a cool place, once he got used to the guttural native tongue that seemed to him like the sound of wood being chopped. It was odd performing for girls who didn't really speak English all that well, but he got used to that as he did everything, and even picked up a few phrases. He learned that he could never go wrong with danke, so he thanked everyone, even when the German girls giggled because they had obviously asked something else, but thought his inability to speak German was charming.

"It sounds like Klingon," Chris said.

He was in awe of Chris. Chris seemed really unconcerned with what the rest of the world thought, and followed his own drummer with manic steps. There was also the fact that Chris was much older than he was, but hung around him and treated him like an adult, albeit an adult with drinking restrictions. Even then though, Chris was the one who let him try his first tequila shot, and used the word id in a sentence without skipping a beat. Justin hated it when people who were obvious about toning down what they knew in front of him. He wasn't stupid. Naïve, he was willing to concede, but not stupid. He knew what id was, at least he did now because he had made it a point to look it up in his dictionary after Chris had used it so flippantly in front of him.

It wasn't a special night when Justin's awe of him turned into something else. JC, Lance and Joey had already crashed, exhausted from performing just an hour before. It was mediocre, and those were actually more exhausting than the really good ones and the really bad ones. It was odd too, because the high was still there, but the fact that it was merely average didn't take away the high. For some reason, there was always a plateau that could be reached.

Justin was high on adrenaline when he knocked on Chris's door. Chris opened it and tilted his head to the sleeping, snoring Joey, who lay spread eagle on one of the beds.

"Just as long as you're quiet. Did you bring the lemons?"

"I like limes better."

"Gross." Chris's dreadlocks swung gently as he shook his head in a 'no' motion.

"I like limes better," Justin said petulantly.

"You are such a brat."

Shots went by pretty quickly, although Justin was already feeling rather woozy when he took his third one. The fifth shot made the lemon and lime rinds look blurry. With his sixth, he saw Chris sitting on the edge of the bed with the bathroom light on behind him, illuminating him. When the ninth shot cascaded down his throat, he was sure he was in love with Chris, and leaned forward to kiss him.

There was a moment of absolute silence.

Then there were a few moments where Chris's mouth opened and his tongue dipped furtively into Justin's. It was lemony, it was fire, it was slick and wet and cold and hot all at the same time, and something went into spirals and twists behind Justin's eyes.

Firm hands gripped his shoulders, and pushed him away.

"No." Chris's eyes were dark and inflexible steel.

He remembered being led to his room and being made to lie down in it. He was whining too, he was sure of it. Chris left the room quickly.

He never hated old people as much as he did then. The dictionary went into the hidden pockets of his suitcase that he never bothered unpacking. His mother discovered it years later, but then Dani was in the picture and he was convinced it was the tequila anyway.

**Jack D and Miss E**

  
It was during the lawsuits when Justin first started drinking Jack Daniels. Sometimes directly from the bottle, which he really didn't like doing because it was so over the top, like on the soap operas his mother watched with a fervor. Nevertheless, he drank it. He took Ecstasy too because he believed the name and thought it could deliver, which it did in small doses. In clubs especially, when the beat became an earthquake beneath his feet and everybody looked so shiny. His limbs took on an elasticity all their own and he flicked his tongue in and out, licking the anonymous stranger he saw on the ceiling.

He liked swirling Jack Daniels in his mouth before swallowing it. He took the E soon afterwards, going for that effect he felt the first time.

The first time he took both, it was magnificent. He already had a buzz from the JD, and when he took the E, it seemed to mushroom within him, this spirit of good times. He had always been a happy drunk, but with the added drug, he was ecstatic. It felt like the best sex he hadn't had and the high note he hadn't been able to reach before. It felt like he was being kissed by the night, and it was cool and enveloping and anonymous.

At least, that's what he remembered the first time was like. When he was honest with himself, he knew his memories of that night were sketchy at best. When he was brutally honest with himself, he knew it wasn't E he popped in his mouth like potato chips, but he liked pretending it was.

**Joey and Lance**

  
Drunk, Lance was pliant and surprisingly flexible. He purred like a cat, and stretched sinuously on the bed, raising his hips up into the air and grinning almost defiantly at Justin. Come on, his stare seemed to say, do what you want and let's see who breaks first. His body glowed like milk in a bottle, with his reddish cock in stark contrast. Justin couldn't get enough of it as he sucked on it, tracing the network of veins visible with his tongue.

High, Joey was enthusiastic and forceful. While Justin was crouched on his elbows and knees salivating over Lance's dick, Joey was furiously pounding into him with deep, hard strokes. Sometimes, Justin lost Lance in his mouth because Joey would thrust particularly hard, jarring him off his rhythm, sometimes scraping Lance accidentally with his teeth.

Drunk and high, Justin was open to everything.

He doesn't remember how it started, and he doesn't quite remember all of how it ended, but he was sure Joey kissed him on the cheek, his stubble grazing Justin's cheek when that first and last night was over. He kept saying that it was too weird with three people in the mix. Lance was sitting beside him on the bus when Joey told him that, and when Joey was done talking, Lance slid an arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the forehead, a soft, incendiary peck.

"We figured out one thing," Lance said.

"Which was?" Justin inquired.

"We like it just being the two of us. Last night was a -" Lance flailed about for words.

"An exception. We were all so wasted last night, J," Joey continued. "I mean, come on, you know what it's like when we're plastered."

"You fuck anything that moves," Justin said.

Joey winced.

"We're really sorry, J." Lance looked like he was about to cry.

"We never meant to hurt you," Joey said. "Besides, you have Brit now. What, you think last night was fair to her?"

Joey and Lance then shared a look, and it was a look that Justin resented. He was suddenly in a very weird place, and just a few hours ago he was fluent in its native tongue. Now it seemed like everything he said was gibberish, and all the three of them could do was nod and look pathetically sorry.

"Who said you hurt me?" Justin said, with a false and deliberately exaggerated show of swagger. "Dudes, you sucked anyway." He walked away from them, feeling the mark of Lance and Joey's kisses on his face. He didn't like the way things were handled here, but he hated it more that the only kisses he can ever remember from both of them were the ones excluding him from something he knew he still wanted.

He shaved his head the next day, because there was a memory of both Lance and Joey clutching at it at the same time, Lance pulling him towards his cock and Joey pulling at it while he was thrusting into Justin. It was painful, but he loved every minute of it.

**Brit**

  
She was always Brit, never Britney to him.

"Tell you the truth, J, I hate my name. I really hate the way it's spelled too. That really annoys me, names like mine. It's either too cutesy or too weird. You remember that girl in MMC, right? I think she was Keri's friend or something."

"The one with long dark hair, or the one who wore San Rio shirts all the time?"

"Long dark haired girl. Do you know what her name was?"

"Melanie."

"Yeah, we said it that way. But I saw her wallet once, and it was spelled-" Brit took a breath to compose herself, because she was close to cackling, "M-e-l-a-w-n-y. Can you believe that?"

"You're kidding me."

"I wish I were! Do you think her parents thought they were being creative, or do you think they didn't really want any children?"

They both laughed out loud. It was contained in the cool, air-conditioned interior of Justin's car. The windows were tinted only one way, so they had a clear vision of everyone outside but no one could see them. Brit's real laughter was actually more of a raunchy cackle. She loved laughing like that, and Justin made it a point to tell her dirty jokes after press conferences because she got so sick of giggling demurely for the press and answering their horribly invasive questions with a smile.

When the laughs died down, Brit inhaled deeply and said, "Justin, are you sure you want to do this? It really isn't necessary. You can be the lone wolf bachelor, you know. Girls always go crazy for that anyway. They can pretend you're singing This I Promise You for them."

Justin glanced at her sideways, which Brit caught. She made a cross-eyed face at him in return.

"Yeah, I think it'd be better," Justin said.

"You're the boss."

Justin got out of the car. He went to the passenger's side and opened the door. Brit stepped out in a short, pink sundress. She smiled at Justin and took his hand. They walked down Orlando's streets, with his arm around her shoulder and her hand down his back pocket.

"Nice ass, J."

"Nice tits, B."

"They're implants, you know," she said with a sly smile.

He laughed and bent his head to kiss her. She responded in kind, with her mouth opening gently, sucking on his lower lip. Her lips were fruit flavored. Brit broke it off first with a smile, then raised her hand to swipe at his lips gently. He licked his lips lasciviously, which made her cackle. She remembered that she was in public and changed it into sweet giggles.

"I know somebody saw that, I just hope somebody had a camera," she said. "I heard some girls gasp too, that's good."

"Yeah."

They walked down a few more blocks, but the girls behind them were increasing in number.

"Your lips taste nice. What is it?"

"Something from the Body Shop. I forget the flavor."

"Hmm. Race you to the car?"

"Where is it?"

"Right ahead. I made sure to take a route that went around."

She ran ahead of him without any warning, and he chased after her. He heard her cackle again, but the screams soon drowned her out.

**JC**

  
One of JC's favorite songs was the pinball song on Sesame Street and Justin knew this caused JC a great deal of embarrassment. At odd times, when Justin was hanging out with him, he'd hear JC hum or sing it softly.

"_One two three four five, six seven eight nine ten, eleven tweee-ee-eelve!_"

Justin would give him a look, which JC often returned with pink cheeks and indirect eye contact, but he would continue singing it, making nonsensical phrases and noises while occasionally singing the number of the day.

"_Twelve! Dut doo doo do roo do doot! Twelve!_"

Justin grew accustomed to it as he did with everything strange that JC said or did. It went both ways, although JC never let him get away with much. It was JC who locked them both together in JC's room in his house for a week and demanded that Justin go cold turkey for instance.

"I know you, Justin. You go for broke all the time. Do it this time. Go for broke. You don't need this shit!" Justin threw up on him deliberately, which JC just calmly cleaned up. He railed, he called JC every disgusting name in the book, he made it a point to miss the toilet every time he went there but JC had taken it all and stuck through those exhausting seven days.

"I'll hurt you if I have to, C, if you don't get out of my way."

"It wouldn't matter, J," JC had said with an angry twist on his initial. "You think I did this without help? Chris put padlocks outside the door."

"Chris knows about this?"

"Who do you think bought all the cup-a-soups?"

Those seven days were a torturous stretch for Justin, but the experience was clear and lucid. He had forgotten what it was like to remember clearly.

"This thing with the Chinese writing is the best one. Just salty enough, and it doesn't make your burp smell like something dead was in your stomach," JC said. He was speaking softly because loud noises got to Justin during that time. He had filled the soup up with hot water from the adjoining bathroom in his bedroom and had given it to Justin, who went into dry heaves when he smelled it.

"Okay, maybe not," JC had replied.

Justin laughed. That was clear in his head too, when he wanted to remember it.

Or the time that Justin, bent over with guilt from a source he didn't know, and his insides churning from wanting something to drink, yelled at JC,

"I'm a fucking faggot, that's why I need something. Let me out of this fucking room!"

To which JC replied, "If that were a good enough excuse, I'd have been taking drugs a long time ago."

Justin couldn't find a smartass reply for that, while things reorganized and shifted in his head. When he looked back on that statement, that was the starting point.

JC was right in the end. That had always been his personality, to go for all because part of something wasn't enough for him. When he went through the seven days without liquor and the pills (which JC had never been able to identify), he knew he could go without it. He proved his point, even if he did fall off the wagon a couple of times. Even then, JC just gave him encouragement, and that was usually enough to give him motivation to go through the damn struggle all over again.

Justin, wanting to do a good deed in return, reminded JC to eat. JC was the first person he ever met who could actually forget to eat. There were times when he was so preoccupied with the notes playing in his head and the lyrics he was writing in his notebook that he didn't notice his hunger, and that was usually what Justin looked out for. JC would then look at Justin with bafflement in his eyes and say,

"Did I forget again?"

"Yup."

It became a habit for Justin to carry protein bars and Rice Krispie squares. When they were recording _Celebrity_, the bars became a fixture in JC's hands.

"Non-fat and promotes muscle growth," JC said. "Now if only I'd work out more." It was odd how he remembered these things now, and how he liked storing these little snatches in neat little cubbyholes in his head.

When they finally kissed, it was the flavor of a chocolate truffle soy bar.

"Congratulations on _Pop_," JC said. "I love it. Especially that ice around my neck line."

He felt something expand in his chest, almost painfully so. He couldn't speak for some reason, and just smiled at JC.

JC returned his gaze calmly and leaned in to kiss him.

Justin felt something explode. JC's hands cupped the sides of his face and he felt himself lean into it, melt into it and settle into it. It was like memory being reawakened, instincts being returned as his body and mouth responded immediately into patterns and nuances and motions that somehow he just knew.

He broke off the kiss, trying to catch his breath, and saw JC's serene face.

"How did you know?" he asked JC, desperately wanting him to say the right thing.

"Things are clearer now."

And somehow, that was the right answer.

 

THE END


End file.
